Binance says customers pulled net $4.7 billion after hack as crypto world weighs risk

By Rae Wee and Elizabeth Howcroft

Nov 2 (Reuters) - Binance's customers have withdrawn almost $5 billion from the world's biggest cryptocurrency exchange since it reopened after a hack that saw $6.3 billion of crypto stolen from the platform in what could be the largest financial heist in history.

Customers have withdrawn a net $4.72 billion since a suspension was lifted on Sunday morning, a spokesperson said. The exchange froze withdrawals for about 48 hours after the hack, which the FBI said was carried out by North Korea.

Binance said the net outflow amounted to about 2.8% of assets on the platform, a relatively modest figure that analysts said suggested customer confidence had largely held up.

The outflow compares with about $7 billion withdrawn from Circle's USDC stablecoin over a week after the collapse of Silicon Valley Bank in 2023. Binance itself processed net outflows of about $6 billion over 72 hours following the collapse of FTX in December 2022.

"Our top priority right now is to ensure the environment is secure, after which users can withdraw their funds and Binance can resume operations," Binance co-CEO Yi He said in a post on X on Monday.

Trading volumes increased across the crypto market as investors grappled with what could be the biggest theft from a financial institution ever.

The attack marks a step up in North Korea's crypto thefts. Blockchain analytics firm TRM Labs said North Korea-linked hackers have stolen $7.4 billion so far in 2026.

Binance said it was covering the losses with company funds and had already raised $6 billion from its corporate treasury, an insurance fund and reserves set aside for security breaches.

"It has not yet triggered widespread panic or a massive, concentrated withdrawal," said Tim Sun, a senior researcher at HashKey Group, a digital asset financial service company in Hong Kong.

Sun said security concerns were likely to influence how much market makers, institutions and other investors allocate to cryptocurrencies.

Binance, which says it has more than 335 million users worldwide and average daily trading volumes of $95 billion across digital assets and derivatives, also sought to reassure customers.

"After an initial spike, withdrawal volumes have declined and are stabilising," Binance said on X. A spokesperson said there had been $2.7 billion in inflows.

NO RUSH TO WITHDRAW

Some traders told Reuters they were keeping their accounts.

"I would not necessarily withdraw everything from Binance, because centralised exchanges continue to play an important role in liquidity, trading and market access," said Jay Koh, vice president of the Asia Web3 AI Association, a blockchain advocacy group based in Singapore.

Ryan Tan, a Binance user, said that he was in no hurry to withdraw his funds from the platform, as he had already kept his account fairly light since the collapse of another crypto exchange, FTX, four years ago.

"After the FTX collapse, I decided to hold everything on my wallet instead of leaving them on exchanges," said the 39-year-old.

After hitting a six-week low on Friday, bitcoin prices recovered through the weekend to trade around $78,000 on Monday, while ether also rebounded from a two-month low.

Stablecoin market capitalisations, often viewed as a gauge of money moving into and out of crypto markets, have fallen since Friday, suggesting some investors have shifted funds into cash or traditional assets.

Binance said withdrawals had resumed for bitcoin on the bitcoin network and for ether and some dollar stablecoins on the Ethereum network, though its website still showed withdrawals remained partially suspended for most cryptocurrencies.

It restored US dollar cash as a withdrawal option on Monday.

BIG INVESTORS SEEN TURNING CAUTIOUS

The Binance theft is the largest of a string of crypto thefts blamed on North Korea.

The FBI said on Saturday that the North Korean state-sponsored group TraderTraitor was responsible for the attack. Researchers describe the group as highly sophisticated and say its activities help fund the country's weapons programmes.

Analysts said the scale and prominence of the attack could curb institutional appetite for cryptocurrencies, which many investors had hoped would support prices.

Spot bitcoin ETFs recorded outflows of $643 million on Friday, the largest daily withdrawal in October, while more than $1.3 billion in leveraged positions were liquidated, according to Ari Redbord, global head of policy at US blockchain analytics firm TRM Labs.

"A hack at a crypto exchange is bank robbery at the speed of the internet, which creates an unstable risk profile for anyone responsible for other people's capital," he said.

About half of the stolen funds were held in stablecoins and have been frozen by issuers including Circle, which said on Monday it had frozen more than $1.1 billion in USDC.

Jonathan Benton, founder and chief executive at crypto asset recovery firm iSanctuary, said the technology exists to trace stolen funds, but the challenge is turning that intelligence into rapid, coordinated action before those assets disappear.

"The future of crypto won't be decided by how much money enters the market, but by how safe that money is once it's there," said Benton, former head of the international corruption unit of the UK's National Crime Agency.

(Reporting by Rae Wee and Ankur Banerjee in Singapore, and Elizabeth Howcroft in Paris; Writing by Scott Murdoch and Tom Westbrook; Editing by Sonali Paul, Xevi Fontdegloria and Mark Potter)